HS:
My
feeling is that before a consumer space market really becomes
a widely accepted place to invest - in the same risky but viable
league as, say, biotech - it will take at least two or three successful
"paradigm breaking" ventures.

For
example, say that by 2006 or 2007, the Soyuz flights have continued
with two flights per year carrying millionaires and also "regular
people" who won contests, a sub-orbital vehicle won the X prize
and [it and other vehicles] began routine tourist flights, and
the Transorbital's lunar orbiter mission succeeded.

I
could then easily imagine the dam bursting on new investments in all
sorts of crazy space ideas, especially if the general economy
is doing well.Does
this sound reasonable to you? What do you think it will take to light
a boom in space development?

Possibly. It depends
what comes out of these developments. If people's imaginations are fired,
then yes, a boom could ensue. If there's bad press--say, people think
the experiences don't meet their expectations--then possibly not.

I think one person
who could help the effort tremendously is Richard Branson. I don't know
if he's still planning to go ahead with his idea of a space airline--I
hope so. He has the following and the glamor to make space tourism really
exciting. I recently attended a leadership conference in L.A. at which
he spoke. You should have seen the crowd! After he got off the stage,
people rushed to talk to him. The security force had to turn them away.
No other speaker elicited anything like that reaction, and the roster
included Tom Peters, Ehud Barak, Lou Dobbs, and James Baker.

Space needs to be
made cool. There are any number of ways to do that, but that's the basic
answer.

HS:
One
of the things that drives me crazy about discussions in the general
press concerning space development is the obsession with the public
opinion polls. It's as if nothing can happen in space unless +51% of
the public are in favor of it. That goes back, of course, to the post-Sputnik
boom in public interest in space that drove the creation of NASA and
the Moon Race. But that was a one-off and you will never get that kind
of vast public interest in space short of a landing by an alien spaceship
or the sighting of a comet heading for earth.

Or a trip to Mars.

HS:
Perhaps,
assuming we solve the conundrum of getting enough public support in
the first place to convince the government to fund such a trip. But
in general, I'm thinking more about the second, third and subsequent
trips to Mars or the Moon or wherever. It's difficult to maintain broad
public interest after the first exciting event. I think the focus should
instead be on building and maintaining the involvement of a relatively
small (10-15%) segment of the public that in polls always show strong
enthusiasm for space.

As long as that
level is great enough to assure ongoing funding, I think that's a great
idea. If the missions somehow become self-supporting (which I don't
see for a long time), then you don't need to engage the public quite
as much.

However, I think
there may be ways that you can keep people's interest for a long time,
and those are: 1) Give them personal stakes in the activities, probably
financial, but also having to do with fame, power, and bequeathing legacies,
and 2) Create controversy. As we all know, people are motivated by self-interest,
and they love to argue. Engage them in one or more of those ways, and
you've got their attention.

HS:
A
discussion, for example, about space recently on NPR included
a comment by the moderator that since Shuttleworth's flight was
not mentioned on the front pages like Tito's, space tourism was
already fading away. Geesh! Most business's are not mentioned
on the front pages. In fact, the most exciting thing I could imagine
with regard to spaceflight is that it becomes so routine for members
of the general public that it's not mentioned anywhere in the
newspaper except perhaps in the Travel section!

The
question I'm trying to get at has to do with the viability of
small, niche markets for space development. Do you think that
starting small, as with, for example, sub-orbital space tourism,
can really be a starting point for moving humanity into space?
Or, as typically criticized in space newsgroups and forums, these
are just side shows to keep us space cadets busy while NASA and
Big Aerospace do the serious work of building the space infrastructure?

No, I don't think
they are sideshows. Do you think all the computer companies that preceded
Microsoft and died out were sideshows? No. They paved the way for huge
companies like Microsoft, Sun, and Oracle. Would it be better had they
survived? Probably, but what's done is done.

HS:I
saw a quote in Aviation Week a few months ago by the vice chairman of
Boeing in which he said that commercial space tourism is currently impractical
because their studies showed that it would take at least $15 billion
to build a ship to carry 50 people to space at a ticket price of $150,000.

To enter the market,
that may be true. But how about later on?

HS:Obviously,
the thought that Boeing could build a small sub-orbital to carry two
or three people did not occur to him anymore than the thought that Boeing
should build a Piper Cub sized airplane for general aviation.

Yes, I can imagine
that. Boeing is not a small potatoes company. They need to see the possibility
of making billions in order to become interested.

HS:To
me this clearly shows how small companies are essential in getting a
new industry off the ground. The initial market is small so volumes
and profits are too low for what a big company requires. In reporting
on the recent Futron/Zogby space tourism survey of wealthy households,
the Space News headline said that "only" 19% of the respondents
would pay $100k for a sub-orbital flight. Well, that number may not
sound exciting to a Boeing-sized company or to an aerospace industry
reporter but the people at the sub-orbital startups must have been breaking
out the champagne. That's a far bigger market than even many space enthusiasts
had guessed and plenty big enough to provide the handful of passengers
per week needed to support a small sub-orbital tourism company.

I agree with your
point here. There's nothing wrong with small businesses, and in fact,
the scenario you describe fits perfectly into my "baby steps" idea.

HS:I
really believe that the development of a private sub-orbital industry
will be the real birth of the space age in terms of public participation.
Regardless of NASA funding or government policies, this is something
that space entrepreneurs can just go out and do by themselves. The funding
required, in the few tens of millions of dollars range, is well within
what startups can raise, and there is a real, honest to God market waiting.
Once the industry begins to develop, profits can be plowed back into
more and more advanced vehicles and eventually ones capable of going
to orbit.

I completely agree
with you.

HS:I
also like the analogies to the development of the PC industry but I
think there is another helpful analogy as well. I can remember the first
transistor AM radios and cheap compact cars from Japan back in the 1960s.
Nobody took them very seriously but the Japanese electronics and car
companies continually revised and improved their products in small increments
and over time the progress was obviously enormous. (The same thing has
started with Japanese consumer robots.) I think the sub-orbital companies
can begin a similar process for space access. While, as you say, it's
likely they will eventually be snapped up by big companies, there is
also the chance one or two of them could someday become the Lexus and
Acura of spaceship makers!

I do think that
big aerospace could overtake and co-opt the small companies, yes. But
if the big ones buy the small ones, the small companies' investors will
be happy and they will have succeeded to a point. What we probably all
should have *is* the big companies doing development while the infrastructure
is put in place. They have the deep pockets. I have a hard time imagining
that small companies will take us all the way. Look what happened in
the development of the Internet. At first it was a free-for-all. Now
the big companies are taking over. Like it or not, that's the way a
lot of industries work. And those that require huge investments, like
space, will inevitably develop along the same kind of path. I don't
think this is the best thing for egalitarianism, but unless a bunch
of small companies form consortia, I can't see them having enough resources
to build the infrastructure. The thing to do is to keep the big companies
honest during the process by buying their shares, speaking up, and lobbying
the government. And voting!

HS:
OK,
say by 2025 we have private spaceships going strong and commercial
space stations opening for business. What kind of society will
begin to develop there? What will be some of the early conflicts
and points of contention?

Very interesting
and tough question. You will undoubtedly have friction between
the haves and the have nots. I think it would be a good idea to
make sure everyone can participate. For example, for every x number
of acres on the Moon that can be claimed by private individuals
or companies, y number should be set aside as public lands, and
y should be significant, not just a token. Such an outcome is
by no means assured, however. There will be a lot of grabbing
and competition, and you will see some ugly incidents. There will
be major fights over resource use and pollution/defilement of
the pristine. There will be conflict among nations, ethnicities,
and other groups. Kind of like what you have going on on Earth
today. Human nature doesn't change.

Ever watch Babylon
5? If you imagine the various alien societies as earthly nations and
cultures, the situation looks pretty analogous to your 2025 scenario.
Some will get along, some will fight, cultures will rub off on each
other, and our cosmic neighborhood will be a vital and flourishing place.
Despite the grief, it will be worth doing. I am not a utopian. I can't
see that we will eventually come to lasting world peace whether we go
into space or not, so why not go? If you don't do something because
it won't be perfect, you'll never move from your chair.

As for the society
that will develop in space, it's hard to say. If we don't solve this
conflict between Islamic fundamentalists and the rest of the world by
then, all bets will be off. We have to find a way to bridge that gap,
make a permanent peace by all sides giving up something. Beating each
other into submission will never solve the problems, for there will
always be resentment. Talk to each other. Don't make threats. People
with nothing to lose are always dangerous.

If we can work out
win-win situations in space, we could have a major blossoming of culture,
scientific progress, education, and society in general. The new and
unfamiliar will lead us to all kinds of societal changes, the likes
of which we can scarcely imagine now.

HS:Yes,
my wife and I became great Babylon 5 fans from watching reruns while
we lived in Sweden. I keep hoping that sci-fi writers, TV show, and
film makers will pickup on similar kinds of scenarios like you describe
of what can happen in "real space" in the near term. There are fantastic
story line possibilities in the situation of a rapidly developing space
community just waiting for the next Roddenberry to exploit.

I think James Cameron
is coming up with something here. He's a big supporter of the Mars Society
and has the clout to pull off some hugely interesting media projects.
I know that J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, had a lot
of trouble keeping the show on the air, and that its successor, Crusade,
which I really liked, was cancelled prematurely. Science fiction is
a niche product these days. I think today's kids are more interested
in video games and instant messaging than they are in science and technology.
I love video games and IM, but I think science fiction is a real boon
to a person's development. It inspires you to ask "Why?" and "What if?"
Gosh, how can life be interesting if you don't ask those questions?

As
you said earlier about the need to make space "cool" again, a new sci-fi
approach to near-term space could also help in overturning the common
perception, especially among the young, that real space is bland and
dull, at least compared to intra-galactic imaginings.

I have to add another
one of my refrains here. The military/techie image of space that adheres
to the field is a huge turnoff for a lot of people, especially women.
I think changing that will take a very long time. Space companies need
to focus on the resulting experience for people, not on rockets and
equipment. Tell people how much fun it will be! As I mentioned before,
you should have seen those older ladies' eyes light up when I mentioned
being able to fly on the Moon.

HS:
In your book you mentioned the large segment of libertarians and free
marketeers among space activists. But there are also a number of left,
" third-way" types such as Kim Stanley Robinson who put communes and
gift economies on Mars in his trilogy. Are these groups heading for
a collision? There have already been rumblings from some environmentalists
about keeping the Moon "pristine", i.e. free of bad ol'commercial enterprises
like He3 mines and tourist stops.

Yes, they will collide.
What they need to do is talk respectfully with each other and work out
compromises. Let's hope that some out-of-the-box thinkers emerge to
help bring everyone's interests together. I can't believe there isn't
a way. What I do fear is that some will attempt to sabotage a compromise,
and I don't know how to deal with that.

HS:
What
other space related activities are you now involved in? I hope that
you plan to continue monitoring and writing about private space developments.

I'm very excited
to be serving as a judge for the Clarke-Bradbury Science Fiction Essay
Contest. This is a contest for young people that solicits stories featuring
science fiction technologies that can be used for space travel, exploration,
and settlement. The purpose is to

Promote innovative
ideas for future space technologies,

Recognize and
pursue viable space technologies found in science fiction,

Provide a link
between young writers and the space community,

Encourage young
people to read and write science fiction, and

Share the ingenuity
and creativity of young minds with the general public.

Isn't that great?
I can't wait to see these essays. If people are interested, they should
see the Web site for the contest at www.itsf.org.
The deadline is February 28, 2003.

I do keep up with
the industry, and I am doing interviews and book talks. I also do consulting.
I have no plans for another book yet. I'm waiting to see how Making
Space Happen does before I commit to another. So if you'd like another
one, go out and buy it and show me there's a market.